


Resentment

by vassilissa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6247609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassilissa/pseuds/vassilissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the time it felt like they were part of her ― like she could move her arm and they would be <b><i>there</i></b>, weighting down on her, telling her she could <i>not</i> get rid of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resentment

Pansy doesn't  _hate_  people. This is perhaps the biggest misconception about her.

 

Pansy  _dislikes_  people, yes. Pansy gets easily  _annoyed_  by them, true. She may even strongly  _ **resent**_  some of those said people, because of who she is as a person and because of what they have  _made_  out of her. All of these things are generally correct.

 

All of these things have nothing to do with her right now.

 

She doesn’t understand why it always has to be about others with her. She doesn’t know why she’s so _attached_ to that idea, why she can’t seem to get _away_ from it, why it can’t **_stop_**.

 

Because this is the _thing_ , really. It _needs to stop_. It—just—needs—to— _stop_.

 

People are _scared_ , people are afraid—people _get_ scared, and people act on their _instincts_.

 

People make _mistakes_. _She_ makes mistakes—

 

Pansy _doesn’t hate people_. Pansy hates what she has come to _be_ around them.

 

She hates Blaise Zabini and his dark eyes; his _dead_ eyes, Pansy hates what she knows about him, like how he can’t sleep at night, _never_ , or how much he _really_ despises his mother for all the things she’s done, for never being there, for always caring more about how _saffron crocus’s_ are more delicate than _hydrangeas_ , they’ll look better for the _wedding_. Or how incredibly sick he is of hearing this word, because it lasts so little and causes unbearable damage.

 

How he’s tired of words like _damage_ and _broken_ and _fixing_ and _never-being-able- to_ and feeling **_helpless_**.

 

She has been there through most of it, she knows, she _understands_. And yet—

 

Yet she’s the one being _alone_ , existing in her life as a guest, as someone who’s always there, because she _has_ to be, because there are _appearances_ to be kept and _gossip_ to spread and—

 

She just needs a breath away from it all. Away from a three year relationship and an almost engagement. The ring is heavy on her finger. The words hung low in her mind.

 

_You might be the only one._

 

_It’s not so scary with you._

 

_You just might, Pansy. You just might._

 

Pansy doesn’t know what she might, but she knows facts, like being too afraid to take off this ring, or feeling like a coward when she spots Harry Potter in the reception and her first thought is to _run_.

 

Excuses come to her mind in a wave, things like _I was so terrified_ , or _We were **kids** , what did we know_, but she knows, she _knows_ she could have done better, and she knows she could have kept her mouth shut and she knows that if she had done just that she wouldn’t be this shell of a girl now, too rich to care, too _alone_ to pass judgement—

 

Actions affect us more than we think, is what she’s trying to say, but she always chokes upon her own pretentiousness.

 

The truth is Blaise is getting married to _Ginny Weasley_ , it is _their_ wedding, there has been another ring, another _you just might_ and _it’s not so scary_ , and maybe pretty words were always her downfall.

 

She shouldn’t care about any of it. Sometimes she wishes she could just forget them.

 

Most of the time it felt like they were part of her ― like she could move her arm and they would be  ** _there_** , weighting down on her, telling her she _could not_ get rid of them.

 

Some of the time, she thought she would never be able to fucking  ** _do_**  it.

 

Leave. But she’d do it. _Someday_.

 

* * *

 

 

What she doesn’t understand is how Potter ends up being with her. How he ends up _going_ with her.

 

She sees the ring on his finger, too. Perhaps she understands. Perhaps there’s resentment on both of their parts.


End file.
